California hospitals · 2024 financial year
California hospital capacity and finances, 2024
Beds, patient volume and financial results for 299 comparable general acute hospitals. Each finding lists its source and reporting period.
Draft release. Release 722ce7ffd6ab · September 26, 2026. Independent analysis by CRWDHEALTH. Not endorsed by CHCF.
Summary findings · release 2026-09-26
What the 2024 data show
Six findings from the 2024 data. The report shows the chart, table and source for each.
The 299 comparable general acute care hospitals had 71,732 licensed beds and 2.78 million inpatient discharges in 2024.
Operating margin was 1.7% and net income margin was 6.6%. Of the 299 hospitals, 141 lost money on operations and 97 had a net loss.
Of the 61 hospitals that received at least half of their net patient revenue from Medi-Cal, 39 had operating losses and 21 had net losses.
In the median county, inpatient market concentration (HHI) is 1,986 with hospitals counted separately and 2,553 with hospitals grouped by health system.
California hospitals scored higher than the U.S. average on sepsis care (68.8% vs. 63.6%) but had longer ED stays (183 vs. 170 minutes) and fewer patients who would definitely recommend them.
Medi-Cal provided 30.3% of net patient revenue ($44.30 billion). A 3% cut to that revenue would equal $1.33 billion.
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Almanac, workbook and brief
The same release as a PDF, an Excel workbook and a short brief. All data files are on the downloads page.
Counties
Hospital distribution by county
The 6 counties with the most hospitals in the 299-hospital cohort. Counts show hospitals, not population need or access.